Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 03:26:24 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "'Julien Pham'" <jpham@mis.mc>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Final confrontation : linux/freeBSD vs Windows : the WAR Message-ID: <012401c08466$27b6dcc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <005c01c08454$de5e1180$a000a8bf@julien>
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The position is simple: Try both of them. Pick the one you like. As far as the Windows community being afraid of Linux, I'm pretty sure that this is just some wishful thinking from the Linux community. I think, though, that it's more accurate to say that the Windows community is mesmerized by it. It's like the cat staring into a fishtank, they can't quite understand what's going on, they just know that there's a lot of interesting activity going on there, and they would like to figure out how to put a paw in there and grab some of that activity for themselves, without getting wet. With that said, though, it is certainly the case that there is a kind of a war of development models - ie: Published (as opposed to Open) Source vs Closed Source. Most of the Windows developers are from the Closed Source camp, they were raised that way and they are pretty adamant that they don't want their code visible to the public. Originally, most of the UNIX folks were the same way, but I'd hazard a guess that it's getting close to 50-50 of Closed UNIX source folks as Open UNIX source folks. There's a lot of question that if a major UNIX commercial software vendor were to open their source, that it really would make a difference. I'm going to illustrate this by discussing a hypothetical situation of Oracle publishing their source to their UNIX database product. The knee-jerk response is that if they do this that all their rivals are going to steal all their techniques. However, I think that actually it would make it even harder for their rivals to steal code techniques. For example, today, if Informix goes and hires 10 of the top Oracle developers, then 6 months later comes out with a competing database product that does a similar function as an existing Oracle one, then it's pretty difficult to drag Informix into court and conclusively prove that the code was stolen. Your going to get all of the 10 developers swearing that they didn't violate their NDA's with Oracle, and then what is the court supposed to to - call all of them liars? If, on the other hand, Oracle source were published, and Informix were to steal a bunch of developers and do the same thing, why then it would be a lot harder for Informix to claim that their developers didn't appropriate code from Oracle - since the Oracle code is hanging right out in front of God and everybody. In fact, there would be tremendous pressure on Informix to open their code to prove to the world that they wern't a pack of thieves. Another argument against publishing commercial source is that your going to lose sales, but this is poppycock. Nobody that is running a million-dollar database installation is going to employ programmers to roll their own database from published Oracle code - for starters it completely destroys any chance of getting any support from Oracle, and if you have a failure your so screwed it's not even funny. Not only that, but if Oracle were to publish source with the stipulation that it wasn't to be used commercially, then all it would take is a disgruntled admin that was fired from some company to blow the whistle on them rolling their own source, and the SPA and everyone else would be issuing massive fines. I think if you explore this you will find that simply publishing commercial source isn't going to materially affect sales - about all it would do is enable some shoestring operations to illegally use your source for commercial operations, and those folks don't currently represent a market anyway. If there is any fear in the Windows community, it's much more a fear of the market starting to realize that they can demand that Windows software developers publish source. Right now, I think that it's safe to say that few Linux and FreeBSD users would use programs that they cannot get source to. Well, that's almost a 180 degree turnaround from 10 years ago. I remember 10 years back when the "cheap UNIXs" were Covalent and Minix. I don't remember Covalent ever opening their source, and as for Minix, it has a tremendously restrictive license on it's source. Yet, people were very happy to get binary-only distributions of them. If the Windows market follows this, we could well see a scenario in 10 years where users tell Microsoft that unless they publish their Windows source that they aren't going to buy any more Microsoft products. Today, there's kind of an implicit assumption that anything that's public source is automatically licensed so that it's free to use without compensation. ie: there's a linkage in the public mind between truly Open Source, and source that is merely published but not really Open. But, this really isn't true - look at the situation with book copyrights, after all. For example, with my book, it's certainly published, but you don't see a bunch of illegal printing factories grinding out copies down at the waterfront, do you? Yet, using the "people will steal our code if we publish our source" logic on book publishing, you would be seeing bookstores flooded with Harry Potter books that were illegally printed in the back room of some sleazy dive. Well, you don't see this because books are protected by Copyright law - and guess what, SO IS SOFTWARE! So, someone needs to explain to me how it is that the SAME copyright law that protects book publishers from having their published books from being ripped off, is NOT going to protect software developers from having their published code from being ripped off. Not only that but the book publishing industry doesen't even have some industry organization like the SPA that finks can call and get $1000 rewards for ratting out piracy. Frankly, the REAL reason that most of the Windows developers don't publish their code is simply because their code is so CRAPPY, because it's developed in pressure-cooker environments, or by irresponsible young programmers that are given 2 months to do a task, and spend 6 weeks playing foosball on the foosball table that is in their office that they pushed the company to get for them, then cram for 2 weeks to shat out something that barely runs and has had no testing whatsoever done to it. Most of these Windows companies would be publicaly humiliated if their code was available for perusal. Once the computing public wakes up to this they are going to start asking to see the code, and Linux, FreeBSD and the rest of the Open Source community is bringing this closer to reality every day. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Julien Pham >Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 1:23 AM >To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Final confrontation : linux/freeBSD vs Windows : the WAR > > >What is the FreeBSD position vs linux and windows ? I have >read somewhere >windows community is afraid of linux because there are many >software now on >linux, and all free. And what about FreeBSD ? Does it grows >fast enough to >frightened windows community too ? I know unix based OS are >more stable than >windows... And what about apps ? > >Thanks. > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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